Centre to chip in Rs 4,500 crore over 3 years for Mohali Semi-Conductor Laboratory upgrade

The Centre will invest Rs 4,500 crore over the next three years to modernise and expand the Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali, Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Ravneet Singh Bittu announced during their visit to the facility on Friday. The ministers ruled out the SCL’s privatisation and declared it would remain a government-run R&D powerhouse critical to the country’s semiconductor ambitions.

Speaking to The Tribune, Vaishnaw and Bittu said the Centre had formally requested the Punjab Government to allot 25 acres of land adjacent to the SCL to enable the next phase of expansion. “The faster the land is allocated, the faster SCL’s expansion will progress,” he said.

Vaishnaw, who holds the portfolios of Railways, Electronics and Information Technology, and Information and Broadcasting, said the investment would overhaul production lines, bring in new tools and raise fabrication capacity to 100 times the current wafer output, marking the biggest upgrade in the SCL’s history.

Stressing that the Prime Minister had drawn a “clear and far-reaching roadmap” for the SCL under the India Semiconductor Mission, he said the facility would continue to serve as a national training, innovation and fabrication hub for students, researchers, start-ups and strategic sectors. “The SCL will be modernised and it will not be privatised. A big journey is ahead and India is ready for it,” he said.

During the visit, the ministers handed over 28 student-designed semiconductor chips fabricated at the SCL using electronic design automation (EDA) tools provided under the Chips to Start-up programme, taking the total number of student-designed chips fabricated at the facility to 56.

Vaishnaw said more than 300 universities were today designing chips using world-class EDA tools made available through government support, an ecosystem he described as “unique in the world”.

The ministers also inaugurated the Semiconductor Process Gallery— a clean-room demonstration facility offering students an authentic fab-like experience—and the Abhyuthanam Training Block that houses online and offline semiconductor training modules as well as hands-on fire and safety facilities. Vaishnaw said the large-scale skill ecosystem would become a critical pillar of the country’s semiconductor capability.

On the strategic roadmap, he said India would strengthen self-reliance in high-end electronics with a consortium of CDAC, DRDO and other national agencies working jointly on indigenous design, product development and manufacturing of Swadeshi chips. He said the SCL’s role as a government-owned R&D institution would be reinforced under the strategy. “The entire team has been told very clearly: SCL will remain a government organisation and will play a major role in India’s semiconductor journey in the future,” he told The Tribune.

Highlighting the transformative potential of the SCL’s upgrade, the ministers said facility would support both commercial production as well as R&D activities, a world-class semiconductor training centre and a high-capacity fabrication line under Semicon 2.0, on which the MeitY has begun internal consultations.

Vaishnaw said the expansion of the SCL would contribute substantially to the country’s rapidly growing semiconductor ecosystem—central to critical systems in healthcare, transport, communications, defence and space. “In just four years, India has moved from vision to reality. The world believes India will emerge as a major semiconductor hub,” he said.

The visit, marked by detailed briefings from SCL scientists, underscored the Centre’s intent to reposition the facility as a modernised, strategically significant and globally benchmarked semiconductor manufacturing and R&D platform.